Commentary:

It’s been a while since my body has felt really good heading into a workout. Last night was an exception; for reasons I cannot explain, my body felt really good (and I felt strong) heading into the workout.

“I feel really strong tonight,” I said to one of my training partners.

“You must be experiencing one of those things that happens to old men every once in a while,” Jeff said.

“Thanks Jeff.”

The bench program is my own variant of Wendler’s 5/3/1 for Powerlifting and I am in the first week of a 4 week micro-cycle. I’m not going to go into percentages or perceived maxes, but I’m probably starting too heavy (i.e. not “haircutting” my perceived maximum enough – I struggle against my own ego just like everyone else).

The other issue worth noting is that while I have historically done tons of board presses (for my main exercise), for the last eight weeks I have been doing a tremendous amount of pressing all the way down to my chest. My shoulders have been holding up well and my strength has been increasing, so I feel as though I am doing something correctly. Matthew Rhodes had suggested to me that he experiences better results with full range of motion benching and he inspired me to give it a try – so far so good.

I generally felt good about the workout; I would have loved to have hit a properly loaded 435 for ~5, but I’m definitely heading in the right direction, as long as I can remain healthy.

I really like the high rep 3 Board Presses to help increase lockout strength; I had not done these at all in the last eight weeks; instead, electing to do a “Boring but Big,” benching variant, but it was time to bring them back.